Rockets 108, Hornets 100: Moving McGrady won’t come easily, if at all

The calls started coming in on Tuesday, and they will keep coming now that teams know the Rockets intend to trade Tracy McGrady.

That’s how it is in the NBA. Teams sense weakness – an injury, or suspension or in this case, a request for a trade – and they try to pounce.

Word was that the calls were to make offers the Rockets would never consider, despite the chance to put together an impressive collection of really bad contracts.

For a few minutes, Rockets general manager Daryl Morey might have wondered if by agreeing to at least try to grant McGrady’s request for a trade and give him a leave of absence while he tries, he had diminished the offers he will receive.

He didn’t. He might have for the immediate future and probably through the D-League showcase next month, the first time this season most of the GMs are in the same place at the same time. But any leverage that might have been lost with this week’s news would have been lost pretty soon anyway.

Given a few more days in front of microphones, McGrady would have said again how he felt about his limited minutes, and probably more pointedly than he did a week ago in Orlando. The Rockets might not have wanted to go public with their plans, but something was going to go public, anyway. And teams trading for McGrady would be chasing the contract rather than the player, anyway. No matter how well he comes back, for this season there is no way he will be a $22.5 million player.

The funny thing is that by asking for the trade and leave of absence, McGrady made it less likely that the Rockets will get him what he wants.

There is no increase in urgency now that they have taken this step. If anything, now they don’t have to make a move. McGrady won’t be around. There is no chance of him being disruptive or a distraction. There can be no public pressure to play him, no media inquiries about his minutes, no McGrady comments suggesting he could do so much more than he is being allowed to do.

The things that might have pushed the Rockets harder to making a deal have now been eliminated.

The Rockets will try, and to some degree they have been trying. But it is still a $22.5 million contract. It is very tough to make the money match when you have to pile the contracts up pretty high to get there.

Now, more than ever, they don’t have to.

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As the Rockets begin shopping, they do know what they want. The best-case scenario would be to get back someone of All-Star-ish qualities, either a future All-Star type, someone who has some of that left, or the real thing. That would require taking back a really bad contract or two, but the Rockets would do it for someone at that level. It’s not likely.

They would take the kid with promise, sort of Joe Johnson when he left Boston to go to Phoenix and no one seemed to have an inkling of what he would become. That would really mean the Rockets would have to take back some heavy contracts, but if they liked the players’ potential enough, they’d do it.

The other possibility might be just an exchange of expiring contracts, a chance to get help this season, and for another team to see what McGrady can still do.

If trying to guess how Morey would judge options, look for players that can play at least to the level of their contracts or are so special they might not get there, but it does not matter.

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My favorite response of the day, by far, has been those arguing that the Rockets will never get out of the first round without Tracy McGrady.

OK, you might feel that with him, this would have been the year. They might not advance. They might not even make the playoffs. But can you not see that there is at least some irony in that? Just a little?

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Rockets coach Rick Adelman was pretty clear again on Tuesday that he just didn’t see the sort of player that would make him want to change the way the Rockets do things. Maybe if Tracy McGrady was the player he once was, but he’s not.

Special as his skills might still be, without quickness off the dribble or explosiveness at the rim while coming back from microfracture surgery, he was not going to be a guy to build around, and he does not seem suited for the role player job.

“The thing people want to write about is who he was two years ago,” Adelman said. “He isn’t that right now. We have a whole team. It’s not just about what he wants or what he was going to want. It was about what can he do to help us win.

“He’s coming back from major surgery and rehabilitating, and who knows when he’s going to get there? Right now, he wasn’t there. The explosiveness definitely wasn’t there. That’s to be expected.”

Even if he was that guy, the Rockets believe they have to play a different way. If McGrady was the player he was a few seasons ago, the Rockets would have to make it work, of course, but the decision not to give him the ball and to play off him is in part about the reality that they are not very good at that.

Tuesday’s 108-100 win over the Hornets was a good example of that. When the ball moved rapidly, with lots of touches before it reached open shooters, the Rockets offense clicked, reaching 30 points in three different quarters. When the Rockets stood around and watched someone try to go to work, they had another terrible third quarter.

McGrady was not at a point he could play his way or the retooled Rockets’ way. Now, for awhile, he won’t play at all.